Cutting tagliolini

We start the tagliolini dough after lunch prep, while there is still room on the bench. Flour goes into a wide bowl, followed by eggs weighed out for that day’s batch. We mix until the loose flour has gone, then knead on the bench until the dough feels smooth under the heel of a hand.

A covered rest matters as much as the kneading. We leave the dough for at least half an hour so it will roll without pulling back at every pass. While it rests, we weigh cheese, check the cream and set out shallow trays for the cut pasta. We use aged cheese made with vegetarian rennet in our vegetarian pasta dishes.

Rolling and cutting

We divide the dough into small pieces and keep the unused pieces covered. Each piece passes through the rollers several times, with the gap narrowed a little at a time. If the sheet catches or tears, we stop and check the edges rather than forcing it through again.

The finished sheet sits on the bench briefly before cutting. It needs to lose some surface moisture, but it must still bend without cracking. We dust it lightly with flour, fold it loosely and cut narrow strands with a long knife. Too much flour makes the cooking water heavy; too little leaves the strands stuck together.

We lift the cut pasta with our fingers and lay it in loose portions on the trays. The portions stay covered until service, with space around each one so they do not become a single damp bundle.

At the stove

Tagliolini cooks quickly, so we start the sauce before the pasta goes into the pot. Butter and cream warm in a wide pan. We lift the strands from the water while they still have a little resistance and turn them through the sauce with a spoonful of cooking water.

Parmesan goes in off the strongest heat. We put the pasta on a white plate and shave black truffle over it just before it leaves the pass. Trebbiano, Abruzzo is the glass we usually suggest: its soft acidity works with the cream, and the wine leaves room for the truffle.